Why is mysql logging to syslog?

Question

I have installed Multiple MySQL instances and i have two configuration files one for each one is using default location of /etc/mysql/my.cnf.

other server i have started like

root@ABC-240:/usr/local/mysql# bin/mysqld_safe  --defaults-file=/etc/mysql/binary_my.cnf &


root@ABC-240:/usr/local/mysql# 120104 10:19:34 mysqld_safe Logging to syslog.
120104 10:19:34 mysqld_safe Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /usr/local/mysql/data

I have set the error log in both of the configuration files but one of them as above is logging to syslogs.

Why is it like that?

Answer 1

It may be possible that both instances of MySQL are trying to record log entries to the same location (same file).

I do not think mysql allows more that one error log per MySQL instance.

Here is something further on using error log with mysqld and mysqld_safe:

No error log renaming occurs when the logs are flushed in any case if the server is not writing to a named file.

If you use mysqld_safe to start mysqld, mysqld_safe arranges for mysqld to write error messages to a log file or (as of MySQL 5.1.20) to syslog:

• Before 5.1.20, mysqld_safe behavior is to log to a file, using the default error log file if the --log-error option is not given to mysqld_safe. Otherwise, mysqld_safe uses the file name specified using --log-error=file_name.

• From 5.1.20 on, mysqld_safe has two additional error-logging options, --syslog and --skip-syslog.

In 5.1.21 and up, the default with no logging options is --skip-syslog, which is compatible with the default behavior of writing an error log file for releases prior to 5.1.20. To explicitly specify use of an error log file, specify --log-error=file_name to mysqld_safe, and mysqld_safe will arrange for mysqld to write messages to a log file. To use syslog instead, specify the --syslog option.

In 5.1.20 only, the following conditions apply: 1) The default is to use syslog, which is not compatible with releases prior to 5.1.20. 2) Logging to syslog may fail to operate correctly in some cases; if so, use --skip-syslog or --log-error.

For logging to syslog, messages from mysqld_safe and mysqld are written with a tag of mysqld_safe and mysqld, respectively. As of MySQL 5.1.21, to specify a suffix for the tag, use --syslog-tag=tag, which modifies the tags to be mysqld_safe-tag and mysqld-tag.

If you specify --log-error in an option file in a section that mysqld reads, mysqld_safe also will find and use the option.

Since you started mysqld_safe to start mysqld, you just need to start mysqld_safe and explicitly choose a separate file for the error of the other MySQL Instance using the --log-error option.